Give church benefit of doubt

Let’s give the Roman Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt and assume that its leaders are committed to changing the culture that resulted in the worldwide sex scandal and are making progress on it.

Church leaders could do themselves and their faithful members a favor by being candid about what changes are being implemented, but we can only guess at how difficult it is to address such a mess. And perhaps being too candid might cause new and difficult problems.

Getting the job done could take years because the roots of the problem are so deep, the cultural change needed is unfathomable and the environment for resolving it varies from one side of Planet Earth to the other.

But there is something many of us can do that will help the situation. Have faith that the church is working hard on remaking itself, driving out the people who have contributed to the problem and creating a new church to fill the void. That may be asking a lot, especially for those who have been harmed by pedophile priests — even if that harm is simply loss of confidence in an institution so important in the lives of so many.

Alaskans recently directed some thought to the issue when our state was visited by Walter Robinson, former leader of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team of investigative journalists. Robinson’s Spotlight team won a Pulitzer Prize — and had its story told in a prize-winning movie — for the Globe’s excellent work investigating and reporting on the priest pedophile problem within the Archdiocese of Boston. The archdiocese includes a large area in one of the most Catholic cities outside Rome and the pedophilia scandal there was massive.

Robinson came to Anchorage and Wasilla in mid-July to support and assist a group of volunteers who are working to encourage investigative journalism in Alaska. The group’s motivation is to foster the growth of enterprise reporting in the 49th state, where both print and broadcast journalists have already begun an impressive record of accomplishments in that arena.

The problem of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church goes back centuries but is only now being exposed and hopefully corrected. More incidents are being reported on a regular basis. The shocking thing about the issue is how widespread it is, how many children have been harmed by it and how seemingly callous the church has been in trying to make it go away.

The root cause or causes of the problem are difficult to understand, but one factor is almost certainly the fact that Catholic priests must take a vow of celibacy. My guess is that the celibacy vow draws priest candidates who are terrified by and trying to deny their sexual impulses, a denial in which nature eventually overcomes good intent.

Pope Francis, the Catholic Church’s worldwide leader, is working hard at getting at the root of the problem and in fixing it. One change he is considering is doing away with the celibacy vow for priests and allowing them to marry. That would be a major change of direction for the church, perhaps one long overdue, but historic nonetheless. And making the change may not be easy since it is fundamental to church beliefs.

This past week a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report on an investigation into sexual abuse in parishes across that state, a report covering decades of such abuse involving 301 “predator priests” and more than 1,000 children. Some reports suggested that the number of priests and victims was probably quite larger than those referenced in the report. This week’s message from Rome said the church felt “shame and sorrow” at the disclosure and told victims: “The pope is on your side.”

Though the Globe’s Walter Robinson came to Alaska only to encourage investigative reporting by this state’s news media, Robinson noted that Anchorage has a historic tie to the priestly pedophilia issue. Some years back an Anchorage priest was accused in a sex case. It turned out the man had been transferred to Anchorage after being accused in Boston and shipped out of that town. After his Anchorage travails he left the church altogether. Robinson remembered the case and commented on it to me.

As mentioned above the best thing all of us can do is to assume that the church is making a sincere and comprehensive effort to resolve the problem wherever it exists and to make things better for those harmed.

It may be some time before the extent of the problem is understood and full measures taken to correct them. But the Roman Catholic Church is a great institution that has earned our patience.

This would be a good time to keep the faith.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of five books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.